


One More Light

by Scarheart99789



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Depression, Fluff and Angst, Growing Up, Inspired by a Linkin Park song, M/M, Major Character Injury, Suicide, This isn't happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 08:53:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12128937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarheart99789/pseuds/Scarheart99789
Summary: Who cares if one more light goes outIn the sky of a million stars?It flickers, flickers.Who cares when someone's time runs outIf a moment is all we are?Or quicker, quicker.





	One More Light

**Author's Note:**

> wow i'm gonna work on merfic asap but like. lmao Linkin Park put out a music video for One More Light and I've been crying about it all morning and this came out of me listening to it on repeat for the last 3 hours? enjoy, i'll update merfic within the next few days <3  
> this is also completely un-beta'd. if you find any typos or anything wrong please point them out in a comment for me <3

In hindsight, leaving when Oikawa pulled that kind of smile really wasn’t the best plan.

\-----

After graduating, Iwaizumi and Oikawa ended up going their separate ways for different universities. Oikawa was more interested in becoming a pro volleyball player, and maybe even a coach or something instead if his knee ended up fully giving up on him. Iwaizumi was more interested in learning with sports medicine, so that he would be able to help people that got injuries and refused to take proper care of themselves like his idiotic childhood best friend.

The two stayed in contact, and made regular visits back home to visit their parents and Seijoh, but they rarely managed to get the times right to visit together. It was rough for awhile, but despite all that the two kept in contact through things like texting and Skype to make up for the distance.

All in all it was good, and while Oikawa liked to complain a lot about having Ushijima in his school, it was obvious that Oikawa was working together with him even if he didn’t particularly want to. It was definitely a change from how he had reacted with Kageyama, but he was growing, and Iwaizumi couldn’t help but feel almost proud of him for it.

_(“Iwa-Chan, are you my mom?”)_

True Oikawa continued t push himself to a point where he would be benched, but it had to be hard to keep up with all those other people that were constantly improving just like him. A few times Iwaizumi had made special trips to Oikawa’s university in order to help tend to his wounds, using it as a kind of “field experience” to be better qualified once he graduated and dealt with idiots like this all the time. Oikawa would complain, but it was all just for show. They didn’t get to see each other nearly as much as they would’ve liked to already, so he wouldn’t go out of his way to annoying Iwaizumi into leaving after he had made a trip out to visit him disguised as just wanting to help out with his injury.

Matsukawa enjoyed teasing the two about it, but his words never really got to them. Oikawa would nervously laugh off jokes about them being like a couple, and Iwaizumi would just scoff and tell him to fuck off. It wasn’t like they had never realized that for themselves. Although, they had come to a mutual agreement that they wouldn’t try to date long distance over university, and if they still felt the same after then they would try out a relationship. It seemed smarter like that, but looking back Iwaizumi regrets not coming to a different agreement. Regrets not trying out a long distance relationship over those long years.

\-----

After they finally graduate, Oikawa kept moving up with volleyball, and Iwaizumi got to work as a part time Sports Physician. It took another year of being out of school before Oikawa’s knee finally gave out on him completely, and ended up hanging out at community centers instead and helping coach when he could. It was all too obvious how hurt he was from this change, but it took another month before Iwaizumi was able to go and visit. Busy schedules were eating away at him, and it hurt him every day he wasn’t able to head over to Oikawa as quickly as possible.

Over the year when Oikawa was still actively playing, Iwaizumi had gone out of his way to buy an extra chair for his kitchen in his little apartment, because it wa so easy for Oikawa to just stay at his place when he was around. It even had arms, and was seated at the head of the little table. Oikawa had brought over a special little pillow he had, which Iwaizumi’s mother had sewn as a gift to the both of them. On one side it was covered in a lovely constellation patterned fabric, whereas the other side had fire and a stitched on Godzilla. It was cute, and Iwaizumi had almost forgotten it existed. It had to be over a decade old by now.

So upon going to visit Oikawa, the younger seemed to visibly brighten at Iwaizumi’s presence. After two days of visiting and being (as Hanamaki would put it) disgustingly domestic, Iwaizumi had to head back home to get back to work. Shortly after Oikawa had started packing up his belongings, and ended up moving in with Iwaizumi. Matsukawa almost refused to help him with it, but seeing how much stuff he had and how he still shouldn’t be putting too much weight on his knee, he caved in and helped move everything over the few towns to Iwaizumi’s place.

It was nice, cute, and domestic, and really everything Iwaizumi had wanted out of this new relationship he had with Oikawa. The brunet had made himself right at home, and when he realized the local Gym where people in the community went to play volleyball, he was practically bouncing off the walls with excitement.

Living with this made sure Iwaizumi could keep an extra close eye on Oikawa’s knee, while still being able to work as he normally did. Everything was happy.

Until one day it wasn’t.

\-----

2 years have passed since Oikawa has moved in, and it’s startling with how upset he gets with each passing day. He gets frustrated with not being able to move fast enough, jump high enough, or even _crouch_ properly without his knee aching. It was clear it would never heal properly, but he had seemed fine with now being a part time coach at the local high school in their area.

Iwaizumi was at a loss of what to do. He did everything Oikawa asked of him, but nothing could seem to get the brunet out of this current slump. Now everything seemed to be crumbling apart, and he couldn’t seem to figure out why.

Iwaizumi had been meaning to decline an offer to travel to America for a few months to get to work with other athletes to learn any differences with their treatment as in Japan, but Oikawa had insisted Iwaizumi go. His smile had looked sad, crooked, and Iwaizumi wanted to cry and refuse it all regardless because Oikawa didn’t seem happy, so how could he?

He ended up taking the offer, and after an emotional parting night and a lingering kiss on the doorstep, Iwaizumi headed off to the airport with his luggage and a heavy heart.

Matsukawa and Hanamaki were to keep a close eye on Oikawa while he was gone, but the brunet wasn’t some kind of pet that needed to be fed and walked on a regular basis. So he wasn’t all that surprised to learn they only could drop in every week or so. Oikawa seemed alright from the regular calls he made with him, but it was hard to keep a good schedule with the drastic time differences.

\-----

He didn’t learn how wrong he was about that until he got home.

\-----

Iwaizumi had lost his phone 2 weeks before he was scheduled to come back to Japan, and to make everything worse he had fallen asleep while writing something up on his laptop just a few days after he lost his phone, and spilt his coffee all over it and so that was wrecked as well. He didn’t have a way to schedule a way to contact people back home, but he kept telling himself it would be alright. It was only about a week left until he would be back home, and he would laugh with Oikawa over how much of an idiot he had been and he would buy a new phone and a new laptop back home and everything would be alright.

So, he let his worries drift to the back of his mind while he focus twice as hard on learning all he could in the last few days he had in America.

\-----

When he got home, Iwaizumi wasn’t met by anyone in the airport, which really wasn’t that much of a surprise. After all, he had ended up coming home a day early and didn’t have a way to tell anyone that, so he didn’t let it bother him. But something was getting under his skin. Something was _wrong._

Iwaizumi headed home, and was met by silence once he unlocked the door and let himself in. It was odd, sure, but not really that unexpected. Oikawa was probably out playing volleyball, or even with Hanamaki and Matsukawa. Though he couldn’t shake off the horrible feeling he had.

So, sure enough he headed to the home phone he had gotten at his mom's insistence, and called Oikawa’s number. At the lack of a response, he couldn’t help but scoff and roll his eyes in a fond kind of way, assuming he had forgotten to charge it or something the night before.

Next he called Hanamaki, and when he didn’t answer he moved on to Matsukawa’s number.

Matsukawa picked up pretty much immediately, and after Iwaizumi’s cautious “hello?” the spiky haired male had to hold the phone away from his ear at the sudden yelling. WHy was he making such a big deal out of this?

After a few minutes of trying to make any kind of sense out of what his friend was saying, Iwaizumi told him to just meet him at the playground down the street, and was at least a little bit surprised when he immediately agreed and claimed that he was rushing out the door now.

Well, that’s certainly odd.

\-----

Iwaizumi got to the park and wasn’t sure if he was surprised or not by the fact that Matsukawa was already there, and looked to be shaking. Maybe he just hadn’t slept in a while? He got like this after too many cups of coffee sometimes.

“Hey, it’s been a while.”

Matsukawa choked on air before rushing to Iwaizumi and grabbing at the collar of his hoodie, and shaking him frantically. “Hajime, Hajime oh my god what the hell happened to you why did you never pick up?”

Iwaizumi winced at a particularly violent jerk of his hoodie, before reaching up to try and pry his friends hands off of him. “I lost my phone and my laptop is ruined. Issei, what the hell happened? It’s been 2 weeks since I last spoke to you what could’ve happened.” He demanded, but the feeling of something being wrong grew inside of him, curling at the pit of his stomach and steadily growing to a point where he already felt like puking even though he didn’t know anything about the situation.

“Hajime, Hajime I’m so fucking sorry man. It, it’s Tooru. He’s gone.”

The world seemed to stop. Iwaizumi couldn’t help but scrunch up his nose as he digested the words, the worrying thing in his stomach eating up the words like candy and just making him even more nauseous. Gone could mean anything. He left the city? The country? He went home for a bit? He was kidnapped? _Dead?_

As much as he wanted to assume this was some stupid prank, Iwaizumi knew Matsukawa enough to know that he couldn’t manage to joke while having that much raw feeling in his voice. There wasn’t even a sign of his lip twitching, which almost always gave him away. No, all Iwaizumi could see was pure terror and sadness, and he could feel his own face morphing into one mre of shock.

“What exactly. Does, gone. Imply?” He whispered, glancing off behind Matsukawa’s head to the sunset, and couldn’t help but think that he really didn’t want to know what he meant.

“Hajime. Tooru’s dead.”

\-----

Suicide. Apparently while Iwaizumi had been gone, Oikawa’s depression had just kept getting worse and worse. Matsukawa and Hanamaki had been good with trying to keep him distracted and giving him things to do, but they couldn’t be around all the time. Not like Iwaizumi had.

When he wasn’t able to get ahold of Iwaizumi anymore, he had seemed to assume the worst. Hanamaki made an offhanded joke about it being like Romeo and Juliet, and trying to say that while it seemed like Iwaizumi (Juliet) was dead, it was really all an act and there was no reason for Oikaw (Romeo) to do anything drastic about it.

They had laughed over the parallel, and the two had thought that would be the end of Oikawa’s panic. Which it seemed to be, as he didn’t talk about it anymore, but it was obvious he was thinking it.

A few days later and neither could get ahold of the brunet. They panicked, assuming the worst, and with the spare key Iwaizumi had entrusted them with a wince, they stumbled across the worst of their fears.

Oikawa had managed to down a bottle of pills and slit his wrists, before then settling into a bath that had long gone cold and just. Drift away.

(They called the police right after this and Hanamaki couldn’t even stay in the apartment. It was too much for him. Matsukawa explained through his tears what had seemed to happen before following him out, and quietly ushering him back home.)

They frantically tried to get ahold of Iwaizumi after this, even getting his parents involved to try and get ahold of him, but nothing worked.

Even though it was wrong, they couldn’t help but hope that Oikawa had been right. That Iwaizumi had died over in America, because there was no way he’d be able to handle the loss of Oikawa.

\-----

It’s been a month since Iwaizumi had returned from America, and he is finally heading back to the apartment.

He had after Matsukawa explained everything to grab his suitcases, before then spending the night curled up in a bed with Hanamaki and Matsukawa both clinging to him while all three of them cried each other to sleep.

After that he had went back home, and spent most of the month with his parents and Oikawa’s parents, and being surrounded by love and support. Both families had been openly accepting of the relationship the two had, and it hurt them almost as much as it hurt him to see him so broken up over his loss. The two were perfect for each other, Oikawa’s mom had said one night when she thought Iwaizumi had been asleep. Well, how much of a lie was that? How perfect for each other could they have been if Oikawa had been so depressed over the last few years even with him, if Oikawa had been able to take his own life without waiting to see if Iwaizumi would be coming back home.

So now he was back in the apartment, and he couldn’t help but cry. Although, these weren’t just tears of sorrow. These were tears of anger. Why did Iwaizumi agree to leave? Why didn’t he pay closer attention and realize that Oikawa hadn’t really wanted him to leave, hadn’t been happy with anything recently.

(They used to stay up and watch the stars on good nights. Used to take road trips out to good fields where they could see the stars so much easier and Oikawa would always bring the telescope that Iwaizumi bought him for his 15th birthday and would excitedly point out every constellation he knew even though he had told them to Iwaizumi enough that he could probably repeat back all of the random facts he spewed word for word without having to think about it.)

In the kitchen Iwaizumi couldn’t help but collapse down to his knees and sob even harder. They still had the dumb chair Iwaizumi had bought Oikawa 2 years ago, with the dumb arms and the pillow that had Godzilla and the stars. Their favourite childhood things. A chair that Iwaizumi no longer had a true use for, since he would probably never let anyone that wasn’t Oikawa sit in it.

Already people seemed to be putting this behind him. The rising young volleyball star that had to leave fame because of a knee injury had killed himself and who cared? Close family and friends, but even they were trying to get over it, to get stronger and to not live with so much grief and pain from it.

But Iwaizumi. He would never forget. He had loved too much, too hard, and there was no way to stop caring.

_Who cares if one more light goes out?_   
_Well, I do._   
_Well, I do._

**Author's Note:**

> please go listen to the song oh man Chester Bennington is sorely missed.  
> also feel free to yell at me on tumblr @humanityslastship or instagram under the same name. or even twitter @scarheart99789 but please come yell at me for this i'm so upset why would i do this


End file.
